The Introduction of the Reserve Clause in Major League Baseball: Evidence of Its Impact on Select Player Salaries During the 1880S

The Introduction of the Reserve Clause in Major League Baseball: Evidence of its Impact on Select Player Salaries During the 1880s Jennifer K. Ashcraft Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway Company Fort Worth, TX 76131 O±ce: (817) 352-4919 E-mail: [email protected] Craig A. Depken, II¤ Department of Economics The Belk College of Business UNC Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223 O±ce: (704) 687-7484 Fax: (704) 687-6442 E-mail: [email protected] ¤ Corresponding author. Helpful suggestions by seminar participants at West Virginia University, Clemson University, the University of Georgia, and Wake Forest University are acknowledged. The usual caveat applies. The Introduction of the Reserve Clause in Major League Baseball: Evidence of its Impact on Select Player Salaries During the 1880s Abstract This paper investigates the impact of baseball's reserve clause as it evolved from a \gentleman's agreement" to a formal contract stipulation. Using a unique data set describing the salaries of 29 Major League Baseball players during the 1880s, we test whether average salaries, remuneration to marginal product, and the premium paid to a player for changing teams were materially impacted when the reserve clause became binding in 1887. The empirical results suggest that average salaries in the sample fell by approximately 10% after the reserve clause, controlling for player attributes and the overall macroeconomy. We also ¯nd that the premium for moving to a new team was cut in half after the binding reserve clause was implemented, supporting the invariance principle postulated by Rottenberg (1956). JEL Classi¯cations: J31, J42, L83 Keywords: Sports economics, monopsony, free agency, negotiation 1 Introduction Prior to 1974 the professional baseball labor market was characterized by the \reserve clause," which tied a player's services to his current team inde¯nitely, thereby transfer- ring monopsony power to baseball team owners. The reserve clause was a constant source of friction between players and team owners throughout its history. These frictions were somewhat mitigated by arbitration, introduced in 1974, and free agency, introduced in 1976, both of which essentially removed the reserve clause for all but the least experienced players in the game. These two events have been the focus of a voluminous literature testing how restrictions in the baseball labor market (and their removal) a®ected several variables, including player salaries, player mobility, and competitive balance, to name a few. However, professional baseball did not always have a reserve clause. The reserve clause was formalized in 1887, before which baseball players had varying degrees of freedom in negotiating with other teams. This paper complements the existing literature by analyzing the impact of the newly implemented reserve clause on the salaries of a select number of players from the 1880s. The paper provides a unique contribution by investigating the other end of the reserve clause time line. Using rediscovered data from the 1880s, we estimate the impact of the reserve clause on average player salaries, remuneration to marginal product, and the premium paid to players when changing teams. To do so, we employ the two-step approach employed by Scully (1974). In the ¯rst step, team revenue and production functions for the decade of the 1880s are estimated, from which it is possible to estimate each player's marginal product and marginal revenue product. In the second step, a wage model is estimated in which the impact of the reserve clause is estimated, controlling for player productivity and other player attributes. The evidence suggests that the binding reserve clause reduced the average sample player's 1 salary by approximately 8-10% in the years immediately after it was implemented. Further, higher quality players were not able to negotiate their salaries higher in order to o®set the deleterious impact of the reserve clause on salaries. Finally, the reserve clause reduced, but did not eliminate, the premium paid to players for changing teams, at least in the ¯rst three years of the policy. Thus, as quickly as the removal of the reserve clause allowed salaries to increase, it seems that instituting the reserve clause ninety years earlier had an immediate and opposite impact on player salaries. 2 The Reserve Clause: History and Literature Review The professional era of baseball began in the early 1870s, culminating with the formation of the National League in 1876. As baseball transformed from an amateur game into a business, labor issues soon arose. Unlike present day baseball players, ¯rst generation professional baseball players were not compensated as full-time, year-round professional athletes. In fact, management believed players should be employed elsewhere during the o®-season months (Seymour 1960, p. 106). Not surprisingly, as teams competed for players, team expenses began to escalate. Without the ability to coordinate hiring practices across di®erent teams, owners thought that only the most wealthy teams or teams in the largest cities would monopolize the best player talent, threatening the ¯nancial viability of the entire league. Thus from the owners' perspective, there was an impetus for a system that would prevent player salaries from increasing. As a result, what would eventually become the reserve clause was initiated in 1879. Intended to decrease expenses by placing limits on player salaries, the policy initially \reserved" only a few players on each team. While a reserved player was tied to one team unless the team owner decided otherwise, anecdotal evidence suggests that the initial reserve system was not as e®ective as team owners intended. Nevertheless, Burk (1994) described 2 the reserve system as \the most signi¯cant step [up to that time] in a progression of moves to limit player independence and control" (p. 63). During the 1880s two additional leagues were formed: the American Association (from 1882-1891) and the Union Association (for one year in 1884). As the new leagues increased competition for players, in 1883 the American Association and the National League jointly \agreed" to adhere to the reserve clause. Thus, the original reserve system evolved into a gentleman's agreement in which players were included on each team's reserve list by reference only (Spalding 1960), i.e., there were no contract stipulations concerning the reserve clause. This reserve system was slightly more e®ective but was di±cult to enforce as there was little recourse if one team \poached" a player from another team. However, starting in 1887 the reserve clause was formally included in player contracts (Spalding, p. 109), making the enforcement of the system much easier. Once it was formalized in 1887, the reserve clause persisted until 1974, when baseball introduced ¯nal o®er arbitration for players with at least three years of major league experience. This did shift some market power to players, although players were still tied to their teams inde¯nitely. In 1975, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally sued Major League Baseball to become free agents.1 After several months of arbitration and court appearances, the two players were granted free agent status for the 1976 season, although only Messer- smith took advantage. Thereafter, free agency was introduced for players with more than six years of Major League Baseball experience, which expanded the already existing arbitration system. As predicted by economic theory, the shift of market power to the players caused a dramatic increase in the salaries of veteran players, and the clear regime changes in 1974 and 1976 have been the focus of numerous studies. 1This was not the ¯rst lawsuit concerning free agency. In 1970, Curt Flood, center ¯elder for the St. Louis Cardinals, sued Major League Baseball after he was involuntarily traded in 1969 to the Philadelphia Phillies. Curt Flood argued that Major League Baseball violated anti-trust statutes and sued for economic damages. Although he ultimately lost his case, it was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and arguably galvanized players for future action against the reserve clause. 3 In the pre-free agency era, the seminal paper concerning the reserve clause was Rotten- berg's (1956) theoretical analysis of baseball's labor market. He examined the foundation and e®ects of the reserve clause and questioned the claim that the reserve clause was needed to prevent higher-revenue teams from dominating the market for high-quality baseball players. Rottenberg argued that teams eventually experience diminishing returns from hiring high-quality players. That is, ticket sales increase at a decreasing rate per \star" player added to the roster. In the pursuit of maximum pro¯ts, it is not in a team's best interest to dominate other teams, since \no team can be successful unless its competitors also survive and prosper su±ciently so that di®erences in the quality of play among teams are not `too great'" (p. 254). Therefore, he concluded that without the reserve clause in place, players would go to where they are valued the most but not necessarily to the richest or largest market teams. The literature focusing speci¯cally on the early period of the reserve clause is very limited. Fort (2005) quite ably reviews and re-positions Rottenberg's insights concerning the broad literature concerning the reserve clause. He undertakes a brief empirical investigation of how the reserve clause impacted competitive balance in the 1880s and ¯nds adverse e®ects. Eckard (2001) also discusses the early period of the reserve system and provides empirical evidence suggesting that competitive balance was adversely a®ected by the reserve clause, inferring that the reserve system was a rent-protection scheme on the part of team owners. A number of studies have focused on the impact of free-agency and arbitration on player salaries; in essence testing the extent to which removal of the reserve clause reduced monopsony power.

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